This goes to all the peeps who support parliamentary voting as a valid political action.
If your society has been steadily progressing towards fascism for decades regardless of your voting (like the USA has been), is there any point, any action which will convince you that voting ultimately doesn’t work?
Is so, what is it? What would your government have to do for you to acknowledge that voting doesn’t matter? For many people, it was of course, supporting genocide (which is why so many states desperately try to deny a genocide is ongoing). But if genocide isn’t, what is yours?
Eventually a society which has been slowly progressing towards fascism regardless of voting, will become fascist. And we all know what comes after that. There’s always one thing where I think even the most hardcore parliamentarian will agree that voting ultimately didn’t work: When they’re personally being force-marched to the mass grave-sites.
Would that be your point? Or does it come earlier? If so, when?
The thing foe me was that I felt by voting I was giving legitimacy to the system and in some way (even minimally) playing a part in its oppression and abuse. I want people to see that voting is not the only way to achieve change, and that “direct action gets the goods.”
On top of this I feel by voting “left” no matter what just as harm reduction, you are teaching politicians that that is enough to earn a vote. That as long as they maintain being marginally better than the opposition, it doesnt matter what they do. They can depend on your vote cause at least they arent the other guy. I view voting left no matter what is exactly what has gotten us into this mess, not as a way to fight it. I do not view voting as harm reduction, as voting has not stopped fascism in the past, and it will not now.
I vote on individual issues, and if there is a good enough candidate I will vote in local elections. Otherwise I do not vote.